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A laugh, then a soft noise of surprise and pleasure, then the indistinct sounds of bodies moving together. These were the first things Hadrian heard.
"Husband, please—"
Here, anywhere, Hadrian knew the voice of his god. He stood frozen, feeling a fire ignite deep in his belly. His own presence here seemed instantly intrusive, voyeuristic, but these were the gods. Surely they could know who stood listening behind their door if they cared to. Or else—Hadrian allowed himself to entertain the thought with a thrill of fear—or else they wanted him here.
With the noises Samot was making now, it did sound almost like he was putting on a show.
The sounds lasted for what felt like forever and no time at all, until all fell silent. A few more minutes stretched on amid whispers, a rustling of bedsheets, the muffled tread of receding footsteps—and that last one truly set Hadrian's mind spinning, the unattended ache in his groin growing. Had Samot left? Had Samothes? Had he missed his chance to—to do what, exactly?
It occurred to Hadrian, finally, to wonder where he was and why. The answer came quickly. The wood-panelled hallway he was in belonged to a house he was certain he had never seen, shadowed in the way only dreams can be, as though the darkest corners had consumed themselves or forgotten to exist at all.
This was no magical transportation, then; no message from the gods. It was simply a dream. And because it was a dream, Hadrian reached for the doorknob and entered the room where his gods had fallen silent.
The interior was dark except for the soft light cast by a low-burning lamp on the bedside table, half-obscured by a small pile of books. Before the flickering glow a single figure lay in silhouette amongst the sheets, head turned away, perhaps sleeping or reading. In this lighting and at this distance it was impossible to make out his features, but in the context of the voices Hadrian had heard from outside there were only two options, so he was easy to identify. A sheer robe lay loose around a lean frame, spun-gold hair spilling over the pillows, messy in a way that suggested somebody's hands had just been tangled in it. That last thought, to Hadrian's shame, went right to his half-hard cock.
"Hadrian," Samot said with artfully composed surprise. The god had roused himself to face Hadrian almost the moment he entered the room, gathering the meagre covering of his robe around himself. His face was still difficult to read in semi-silhouette, but Hadrian thought he saw a wide, tired smile. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Do you seek Samothes again?"
Hadrian's mouth, in the heightened physicality of a dream, was too dry to respond immediately.
"You just missed him, I'm afraid." Samot shifted to the near side of the bed and swung his legs down to alight on the wide wooden panels of the floor.
“That’s… too bad,” Hadrian managed to reply, which was really an understatement, but was all he could think of to say. Samot laughed, a light, bitter sound.
“Indeed.” Samot stood, but didn’t move closer. “I’m sure I can make it up to you, so I hope you’ll tell me why else you’re here.” The lamp shone no stronger where he stood now, ghostly backlighting catching at the edges of his unruly mane of hair, reaching ineffectually around the soft fabric draped around his shoulders and folded at his waist. Hadrian longed for sunlight, but he made do with stepping closer to see Samot more clearly.
“You’re right, I was hoping to see Samothes. And you.” Hadrian’s next step forwards was as clumsy as his words, but at least the distance between them no longer felt awkward. He could see the glint in Samot’s eyes, the sheen of sweat from his throat down to where the robe crossed at his chest. “I think I understand you a bit better now. I suppose it matters little, since it’s history, and since this isn’t really you.” Hadrian was talking in circles now, trying to shake his arousal of a few moments ago, still somehow unsure whether he wanted to.
“Oh?” Samot was, as ever, unsurprised. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you were just together…”
Samot exhaled slowly.
“So you heard us?” The question still sounded like a performance. Of course Hadrian had heard, of course he had sought Samothes, of course he had stepped inside, moved closer—it all had an air of inevitability, in the way dreams often do, and Hadrian was grateful when Samot relieved him of the obligation to keep up the charade.
“If this is your dream, Hadrian, then don’t you think you’re advertising your interests quite clearly?”
“I don’t know,” Hadrian said desperately, honestly, and at that Samot made a low sound of amusement, finally taking a step forward. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, he let his robe fall open, and because this was a dream Hadrian let his eyes drop to take in every detail of Samot’s body. He was all slight curves and lean muscle, beautiful even in near-total shadow, two deep purple bruises at his collarbone and hip the most undeniable signs yet that Samothes had been here physically; close enough, real enough, to suck marks into skin.
Hadrian shivered, suddenly acutely conscious of his own body—he looked down, and saw that he was incongruously dressed in full armour, though he certainly hadn't been when he went to sleep.
“You look dashing, Hadrian.” Samot was definitely making fun of him, Hadrian thought, but couldn’t prove it, and became less interested in doing so with every moment. “I can’t tell you enough how well my cloak suits you.”
Of course, that brilliant white cloak. To say that it formed such a natural part of his armour now that he hardly noticed it would be a lie, but it had warmed his shoulders for some time, and would certainly serve him well in the winter to come. Samot’s hands were running through the thick, furlike fabric now, rearranging it around Hadrian’s shoulders. In a movement Hadrian didn’t fully understand, he had somehow ended up right beside the bed, Samot perilously close to him. He didn’t plan to complain. On all accounts he longed to let this dream run its course.
Samot’s barely-clothed body was pressed lightly to Hadrian's chestplate, hand tracing the engraved symbol of Samothes absent-mindedly as he looked up at Hadrian with a curious kind of hunger. Hadrian couldn’t touch him at all through the armour, though he could feel the weight of him, and something about the denial of sensation was intoxicating.
The distance set him thinking again, about how the room had no exit other than the one by which he had entered. He wondered how Samothes had left without passing him in the hall, and then realised it didn't have to make sense because he was dreaming, and then wasn't able to wonder much more at all as he felt Samot lean upwards to kiss him.
Samot’s lips were cold and commanding, not leaving Hadrian room to breathe or manoeuvre, such that he could only attempt to return the enthusiasm, a hand spread heavy on Samot’s back and another tracing down his waist where it pressed against the metal cuirass. It felt like an excessively long time, but was probably only several seconds, before Samot pulled away, hands on either side of Hadrian’s face.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find what you came for,” he said, his voice a little hoarse, “but I expect you’ll stay a while anyway?”
Hadrian reached up to cover one of Samot’s hands with his own, destructively tempted for a moment simply to pull it away, to force himself awake, to see the look on the boy-king’s face when he was denied. But in truth no part of him wanted to deny Samot; not his mind, which was curious and reverent in equal measure, nor his body, which had been yearning for a god’s touch since he heard those first sounds of pleasure out in the hall. Still, a contrarian instinct deep within him—perhaps one that mirrored Samot himself—wanted to push it a little.
He leaned down, earning a sharp inhale as he pressed his forehead to Samot’s.
“Could you convince me?” he said quietly, which wasn’t the impressive phrasing he had been aiming for, but it seemed to do the job.
Samot laughed, this time without malice, and slipped a hand around the back of Hadrian’s head to hold him in place.
“You’ve already convinced yourself,” he said, breath brushing against Hadrian’s beard, “or neither of us would be here. Still, I’ll humour you.” More forcefully than the first time, he pulled Hadrian into another kiss, leading him towards the bed until Samot was lying backwards, Hadrian leaning over him, braced to keep himself from falling forward.
Samot lowered himself into the pillows, not breaking eye contact with Hadrian. He looked like he was enjoying himself thoroughly despite everything, revelling in the theatrics of it all, running a hand down the curve of his torso and between his legs until he could spread himself slightly open with two slender fingers.
It was such an exaggerated display, the sort of thing that only ever happened so elegantly in dreams, but still Hadrian couldn't look away. He was transfixed by what Samot was showing him: a little of Samothes' cum, still spilling out of Samot, glistening between his thighs in the low lamplight.
"Why-?" Hadrian managed to ask, scrambling to form a response more communicable than the near-painful hardness between his legs.
"Why am I showing you the traces he left?" Samot's voice was as sultry as befit the moment, but there was an edge of something else there too. "I want you to know how generous I can be, Hadrian." No longer touching himself, he let his hand fall back to prop up his weight among the sheets, and fixed Hadrian with a pointed, unreadable look. "I’m not asking you to devote yourself to me. Not tonight. I only thought you might enjoy the chance to share something with your god." He smiled again, tilting his head, and in the near-dark he looked lupine, dangerous. "A communion, if you like."
"You…" Hadrian swallowed as he formed the words. "You want me to fuck you?"
"Well—eventually, yes. If you're amenable-" Samot moved with purpose, then, shifting forwards to sit at the edge of the bed, so that Hadrian stood between his thighs. "First, I want you to earn it."
“I— Yes. Okay.” Hadrian’s assent came with an enthusiasm that surprised even himself, even in the unreality of this dream-house.
Samot reached upwards, finally, tracing the line of Hadrian’s jaw with a light touch, scanning his face as though looking for something.
“Kneel for me,” he said quietly, a request that Hadrian couldn’t help but hear as a command, no matter what Samot had said a few moments earlier.
A hollow clunk of metal on wood resounded across the bedroom as Hadrian dropped to a knee in his armour, hands coming to rest where that thin excuse for a robe still pooled over each of Samot’s legs, covering nothing; Samot hadn’t asked anything of him beyond kneeling, yet, but Hadrian could guess where his thoughts were going, and suspected they aligned well with his own momentary desires. This was all in his head, after all.
Hadrian briefly considered asking to be relieved of his armour, but for the moment there was something undeniably appealing about the contrast—a martial composure he didn’t feel, next to Samot who looked dishevelled, wrecked, but still stood regal.
Samot looked like he was about to issue another command, but Hadrian pre-empted him, dipping his head to kiss the top of Samot’s inner thigh. He tasted sweat and wine and a subtle perfume there, at least until he let his lips linger on the traces of Samothes, which stuck to his tongue like metal and smoke, setting his head spinning. Samot gasped through his teeth and let his head fall back as Hadrian moved up, slowly, to take him in his mouth. He let Samot’s sounds and whispered affirmations guide him, and soon enough Samot was arching under him, a guiding hand curled in his hair, sighing his way through a first climax at the behest of Hadrian’s tongue. Hadrian himself was almost laughably hard beneath his armour, and Samot must have taken notice, because he angled his right leg to press his foot, gentle and firm, against the steel tassets around Hadrian’s hips.
“Will I ever see you out of that armour, Hadrian?” There was an uncharacteristically plain lust in his voice, undercut by dread—a dread Hadrian felt in equal measure, though possibly for a different reason, because getting out of his armour was a half-hour-long process that always required at least one assistant.
Hadrian pressed a final kiss to the base of Samot’s stomach, then sat back. “Can’t you just—’ He gestured vaguely to indicate magic, or divine authorship, or something of that sort, but Samot was already shaking his head, leaning back on the bed.
“This is your dream, not mine.” Hadrian felt heat rise in his cheeks for the second time in a minute at the sharp openness of Samot’s tone. “If you can’t banish it yourself I’ll just have to help you out of it.”
And so he did, and it was fiddly and torturous and blissful, because all the while Samot was touching Hadrian, kissing his chest and his arms as he unclasped each plate, until by the time the last of his clothes had been shed Hadrian was certain some little tribute had been paid to every part of his body except his cock, which stood agonisingly neglected in the slight chill of the dark room.
“That was… quicker than I’d feared,” he said, perhaps hoping the compliment would earn him mercy, but Samot barely acknowledged it, caressing Hadrian’s chest in a final appreciative touch before grasping his forearm and turning back towards the bed.
“Practice, I suppose,” Samot said with a wry grin as Hadrian followed him eagerly. “I’ve unfastened my own armour many times over the years, and my husband’s, on the occasion that he wears anything but his smith’s apron.”
It was thrilling, jarring, to hear Samot speak of Samothes so lightly. The final confirmation, if any were needed, that this figment of Hadrian’s imagination had very little to do with the troubled man he had met atop that tower in the Mark of the Erasure, and seen ever since in his dreams. A reassuring disconnect, almost, though who could know—Samot was always more than inscrutable. Hadrian would savour this while it lasted.
"Can I-" Hadrian's voice was hoarse after the ordeal of disrobing, an insistent hand caught in Samot’s hair. "Please, I don't know how long I-"
Samot hummed, clearly pleased with the desperate tone, and reached up to hook his arms around Hadrian’s neck, pulling him in before turning to push him down towards the bed. Hadrian went willingly, eagerly, almost falling backwards as Samot straddled him. Samot was wet with arousal, sweat and the remnants of Samothes's cum, positioned just above Hadrian's aching cock.
"Tell me what you want," he instructed, hand splayed on Hadrian's chest. It barely needed saying, Hadrian thought, but he cooperated.
"I want to be in you."
"Good."
Samot lowered himself an inch further, and Hadrian's hand went to his waist out of a vague urge to pull him down and put an end to this overwhelming tension, but Samot pushed the hand away and—to Hadrian's disbelief—swung one leg back over until he was kneeling next to Hadrian on the bed. Hadrian whined in protest at the denial.
"Oh, have a little patience," Samot admonished teasingly, cheeks flushed, as though Hadrian hadn’t been demonstrating the patience of a saint for at least half an hour. "You know how much I want your cock. But I have something else for you first—you'll have to tell me if you prefer it."
Hadrian was about to insist that he could hardly imagine anything he would want more than to be inside Samot right now, but the god seemed to read his thoughts.
"Don't be so hasty," Samot warned as he slid from the edge of the bed and reached for a bedside drawer, pulling it open after some effort with a heavy creak of old wood. "I know why you're here, Hadrian."
"Because this is a dream?"
Samot laughed almost cruelly, an accusation plain behind the amusement.
"Because you love my husband."
A strange choice of words, 'love' rather than 'serve'. But Hadrian wasn't in a place right now to articulate the precise role love played in his faith. His attention was occupied by the object Samot had produced from the drawer. Held delicately, catching the faint light of the singular lamp, was a cock cast in bronze, stylised but not too smooth; large, but not unbelievably so. Its craftsmanship was perfect, divine.
“A history lesson,” Samot said, as though that explained everything. “It’s the best I can give you.” He leaned back against the table, considered Hadrian for a moment. "Do you recognise it?"
"I've... I've never seen Him in person, let alone-"
"So you do."
Hadrian nodded mutely.
"He made it for me in the early years of our marriage, because I asked and because he didn’t much like my habit of taking other lovers to satisfy myself when we were apart—though we both took many, of course. You've seen the scripture."
Hadrian hadn't, in fact, seen the scripture. With every passing week, every time he dreamed of the wolf-god with the young face and the sad eyes—not in dreams like this but in dream-visions, the ones where they truly spoke—his understanding of his own Church of Samothes grew more and more uncertain. He wondered how much had been lost.
"I had half a mind, at one point, to give it to some priest to display as an artifact," Samot continued, either unaware of or untroubled by the state of Hadrian beside him, strung between painful arousal and faltering belief. "Oh, how I could have improved his church's iconography."
Hadrian couldn't help but imagine the metal cock of Samothes set to be worshipped on an altar somewhere, and found himself torn between laughing and praying for forgiveness—to whom, he wasn't sure. These were hard things to reconcile, the dry doctrine he had been raised with and the immediate irreverence of this conjuration of his god's husband, perched nude on the edge of the bed Hadrian had dreamt up to contain his heresies.
"But—" Samot continued, his hand lingering on the shaft of the model cock as he placed it on the sheets beside him , "I held onto it. I had much better uses for it, as you can imagine." Indeed, Hadrian could. "Now, tell me again what you want."
Hadrian followed Samot's train of thought easily, largely because his own mind had been there already. He closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath.
"I... I want you to fuck me. With His cock.”
“Hm. I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson.” Samot sounded resigned for a moment, gently disappointed. Nonetheless, Hadrian felt the bed dip to his right as Samot climbed back to sit beside him. “But I did suspect you might prefer it this way.” Those next words were warmer, triumphant and knowing.
Samot was careful in preparing Hadrian, perhaps anticipating that he wasn’t too used to doing this. Hadrian wanted to remind him that this was a dream, that he would be fine, but instead he closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of skilled fingers opening him up with some kind of oil, massaging him inside and out until he was blissfully loose, pliant.
It was only when Hadrian felt Samot ease a pillow under his hips to improve the angle, heard the shift of metal over fabric, that he opened his eyes, meeting Samot’s gaze above him.
"Hold on—” he said faintly, a concern half-formed in his mind. “If it's metal, won't it be a bit...?"
Samot paused as requested, but smiled indulgently, and leaned in to whisper against Hadrian's lips:
"Ingenuity Alive, Hadrian. Don't worry."
This time Hadrian actually did laugh, surprising himself with the sound as it bubbled from deep in his chest. He gave a tiny nod of acknowledgement; when it came to Samothes’s work, he needn’t even have asked.
Samot was right, of course, and as he eased the replica of his husband’s cock into Hadrian it was hot, surprisingly so, almost on the edge of uncomfortable, hard as metal but somehow supple, like flesh. Hadrian felt his breaths quicken in pleasure and surprise, letting his eyes fall closed again as Samot pushed deeper.
“Good?” he heard Samot ask, and he could only nod vehemently.
“Don’t stop,” Hadrian urged, his voice catching on the last vowel. The stretch was perfect, satisfying without being painful.
He couldn’t believe Samot was sharing this with him, this exquisite heat, even in a dream. Hadrian gasped and almost bucked his hips the first time Samot really hit his prostate, and it only became more difficult to stay still with the pace he set after that. Samot’s other hand held Hadrian’s shoulder, his bicep, trailed over his chest and belly as though committing the shape of his body to memory, and all the while Hadrian’s thoughts were with Samothes, with this thing He had crafted. Would it be crass to say he had never felt closer to sublimity?
This was the most bizarrely intimate prayer Hadrian had ever given to Samothes, made even stranger by Samot's part in it. He loved every second of it intensely, almost violently. For these few moments he could close his eyes and imagine the Iron God inside him, His breath and strength around him, the warmth of His sun on his skin. For perhaps the first time since his life had become so closely entangled with the divine, his own god didn’t feel so starkly absent.
Hadrian was so, so close to coming with his cock still untouched, and Samot must have felt it, because after too short a time he gave a few last, sharp thrusts before pulling the cock Samothes had made slowly out of Hadrian, whose whispered prayers faded into a groan of complaint at the loss of sensation. To Hadrian's own disbelief there were tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he reopened them. He clutched at the sheets, longing to touch himself but afraid that he might tip himself over the edge and earn Samot’s ridicule if he did. It felt like Samot was taking an eternity to set the replica cock away on the bedside table, rubbing circles lightly into Hadrian's hip with his other hand, never breaking contact.
"Please..." At this point Hadrian wasn't certain what he was begging for, but thankfully Samot was merciful.
"You've been so good for me, Hadrian," Samot murmured, and without any further ceremony he positioned himself above Hadrian, then sank down, taking Hadrian's cock slowly but urgently until it was buried in him to the hilt. Samot was warm and a little loose after having been fucked not so long ago, and he felt divine. Hadrian actually cried out, his face burning, when Samot circled his hips for the first time after taking all of him.
Samot was no less vocal, saying Hadrian’s name among low, pretty moans as he rode him at a hard, regular pace. He leaned down to kiss Hadrian, at least twice, as he dropped his hips, and Hadrian pushed himself upwards to ease the awkward angle, hands on Samot’s shoulders and then on his waist and in his hair. To Hadrian's surprise it wasn’t long until he could feel Samot tightening around him, faltering in his movements, starting to come apart.
Because this was a dream, Hadrian found himself taking the initiative in a way he wouldn't otherwise have dared to try. Grasping Samot's waist in his hands, he shifted from beneath him until he had reversed their positions, pressing Samot down into the sheets. He waited a half-second to be certain the change was a welcome one, but any worries he might have had were quickly assuaged by the noise of pleasure as Samot's eyes flew open and he locked his legs around Hadrian's lower back, pulling him in. Hadrian spread a shaking hand across Samot's stomach, then snapped his hips forward as best he could to drive his cock even deeper, redoubling his pace.
Samot let out a series of choked gasps, punctuated by the regular sound of skin hitting skin, before his voice seemingly failed him altogether and he turned his head to bite at the pillow next to him. He was clutching at the sheets one moment, then the next his nails were raking across Hadrian's back, Hadrian's ass, the top of Hadrian's thighs, sharp and insistent, feeling for all the world like claws. There was something heady and terrifying to Hadrian in the thought that he was able to please a god like this—and not any god, but a god accustomed to lying with Samothes.
Why was Samot so generous? Why did he cede so much to Hadrian? Perhaps it was the silent unease of a thousand unanswered questions that let Hadrian last as long as he did—and even then it was all over more quickly than he would have liked. Hadrian didn't have the presence of mind to give a verbal warning. He just gripped Samot's hips tightly enough to leave marks and thrust hard, as slowly as he could manage, drawing out the dizzying feeling as he came deep in Samot.
The god beneath him let out a sharp, ragged breath, holding Hadrian with even greater strength in return, hands still like claws in his back.
“Hadrian…” Samot sighed, and pulled Hadrian’s left hand away from his waist so he could bring it up to his lips and kiss it, in a strangely formal gesture, before letting his head drop back again. He was breathing as though he had just run from Velas to Rosemerrow, almost in time with the heavy rise and fall of Hadrian's own chest.
Hadrian traced that same hand down the taut line of Samot’s upper body, studying him as though he might find that second connection that he didn’t quite understand mapped into skin there, a record of whatever history lesson Samot had sought to give him. Mostly, though, his mind just wandered, infuriatingly untethered from truth. Samothes's visit had been even less real than the rest of the dream, surely—he could not have been here so physically, so immediately, even in the landscape of Hadrian's subconscious. Hadrian feared and revered Samot in equal measure, he supposed, for giving him this intoxicating approximation of His presence even as he made everything so impossibly disorientating.
It was curious that his mind would render Samot like this, Hadrian thought, once he had blinked the sleep out of his eyes and the darkened ceiling above him had rearranged itself into a dappled dawn sky. Curious that even an unconscious fantasy would be haunted by the boy-king's contradictions. The ground was hard beneath his back, his bedroll providing little comfort. Hadrian realised, a little belatedly, that his cock was softening against his leg beneath his sleep-clothes, spent in the last moments of his dream. That couldn't have been Samot in the dream-house with him, not consciously, not completely, but surely there was always some truth to be found where the mind wandered at night.
The next time Hadrian slept, of course, he saw Samot again. The true Samot this time, at work in his tower in a dream-vision. Though eerily similar to the man in that shadowed bedroom, this Samot was far beyond his reach, detached and incomprehensible, no longer a product of his treacherous imagination. He was still unnerving, still beautiful.
"I saw you in another dream the other night," Hadrian blurted out late in their conversation, before he could think better of it. "You and—I don’t know. It was strange." He didn’t mention the intimate details, of course, and didn’t mention all he had learned, or thought he had learned, as of late. What could he say?
I miss Him, though I don’t think I've ever known Him. You must miss him. You must miss him.
"I'm glad you dream of me," Samot said, and Hadrian didn't know how to respond.